


The God Complex

by Jonah_Smith_907



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Self-Hatred, denial of his own mistakes i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 03:34:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19348675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonah_Smith_907/pseuds/Jonah_Smith_907
Summary: The Doctor reflects on his very long life. It's set somtime after the 13th Doctor. It's a bit sad and a bit depressing, but still relatively light.





	The God Complex

_Why is it up to you to save us? That's quite a god complex you have there._  
Playing with so many people's lives, you might as well be a god.  
You must have been like a god.  
Are you ready? To be a god? 

Sometimes the Doctor thinks back to those words. Sometimes he smiles, shakes his head and sighs, because he thinks it's such an odd question to ask, such an odd thing to say. He's not a god. He is just a man, who's trying to do right, who's trying to make up for all the pain he's caused, all the pain his race has caused in the Time-War. And he thinks he's not a god, he's just the Doctor. He's just trying to help. 

Other times he sniffles and has to wipe away a tear because he wishes it wouldn't be up to him. He wishes he could stop with the explosions, the death, the loss of all those people he loves. He wishes he could stop seeking for forgiveness for all the people he pulled into the destructiveness that is his life, but at the same time he knows he's not strong enough. Not strong enough for the loneliness to consume him, to finally destroy him, in the end.

Sarah Jane had once told him he had the biggest family on earth and that he should stop playing the lonely man. But the truth is, that no matter how many people he loves, no matter how many people he meets and takes with him to see the universe, he'llnever let them get close again, not like Rose, not like Donna or Amy or any of the others before them. Or at least that's what he tells himself, because he doesn't want to think about all the pain to come once they'll have to leave him or he'll have to leave them. If he'll think about it, he might just lose his mind.

So he keeps on going, travelling the universe, saving cities and planets and galaxies and all those people living there. Whenever he sees their smiles, hears their laughs, his hearts beat harder, as if trying to jump out of his chest. Perhaps, if he had only one heart, he might not care like this. He might be able to distance himself from all that happiness, the happiness that he can never have because he doesn't deserve it. Because he doesn't get to keep his friends. 

Because he is destined to be alone. Always and forever, alone. 

Yet he cannot manage to keep them away from him. All of his 'bright and shining companions'. He tells himself he won't let them get close again, before giving them another piece of his soul. He knows, deep down he knows that he will never be able to be the loner he makes himself out to be. He's selfish like that. He's selfish like that and he knows it, yet can't change it. Doesn't want to change it. Same thing. 

He often thinks back to his time with Rose. How innocent she was. How brilliant. And how bright, lighting up his life, making it better in so many ways. Making him. Better.  
Until he lost her. Forever. 

Perhaps it's better this way, though. She can now live her life like a normal person, and what better thing is there than a normal life with a normal family and normal friends? A life where not everybody gets killed or stolen away and sacrificed for a greater cause. 

Sometimes the Doctor lowers his head in shame as he realizes what he's become. The oncoming storm, the predator. The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name. It's probably not a good thing that he's this looming figure in the shadows, only to break into the light and leave behind destruction.

_Doctor, the word for healer and Wiseman, throughout the universe. But if you keep on going the way you are, what might that word come to mean?_

River said that. Amazing, fierce, River. She's dead, too. She died the very first time the Doctor met her. It was the last time that she met him. She said those words and they still stick with him. Because for the people of the Gamma Forest, the word 'Doctor' already means 'Warrior', even though he chose his name carefully. He only ever wanted to help others; he wants to be called 'The Doctor', so everyone knows that he isn't going to hurt them, that he's going to help them, save them, free them. Yet here he is, known to an entire nation as The Warrior. 

_So brave, he doesn't need a gun._

No, he doesn't. He doesn't just kill his enemies. Doesn't want to admit to himself that this is what he's doing: killing. But instead of using a gun, he uses explosions. Just blows up the whole place, telling himself it was the only way, telling himself it's the right thing to do. 

Once he'd asked Clara if he was a good man. “I don't know,” she'd said. “But I think you try to be. And I think that's probably the point.” He doesn't think he's a good man. Not any more. Perhaps, once, he was a good man. Before the Time War, long before he had become … this. His present self. 

 

Too many, is the answer to that question. Too many that were left behind, too many that were in the wrong place at the wrong time, too many that were actively killed by The Doctor's hand. Too many to remember their names, too many to remember, too many!

Too many.

_The doctor. The man who keeps running, never looking back, because he dare not, out of shame._

Which is true. He does keep running because he can't stand the thought of standing still, of having to stop and _think_ , think of all those things keeping him awake at night.

When he goes down memory-lane, he sooner or later ends up back when he met Don Arco Blathereen in Cardiff again. She was a criminal, yes, but she was also smart. She saw things others couldn't. He remembers their dinner and how he told her: “That's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a win, when the wind's in the right direction, you happen to be kind.” He thought he was being clever and all, he was sure she wouldn't know a reply to it. Instead, she said: “Only a killer would know that. Is that right? From what I have seen, your funny little happy go lucky life leaves devastation in it's wake. Always moving on because you dare not look back.”

At the end of the day, the Doctor knows he's faulty, knows he's made many mistakes. But he's trying to do better, is trying not to repeat those mistakes. And still, he thinks back to Clara. She was way too smart for him. “There's three of you. The warrior, the hero – and you,” she told him once. He asked who he was then, and she couldn't believe that he had forgotten who he was.

But the truth is, that he won't stop travelling, won't stop trying to help. He will always, make new friends along the way, he will lose others, he will blow things up and save lives all the same. And perhaps he isn't even all alone. After all, he always has the Tardis and he will never ever lose her. Sure enough, on several occasions he did indeed lose her, but he's always gotten her back. So maybe his life isn't all that bad, in the end. 

Because the truth is: Everything ends and it's always sad. But everything begins again, too. And that's … always happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, leave a comment to make my day :)


End file.
